Goodbye
by Zakkers20
Summary: A series of stories telling how some of Andy's toys were lost.
1. Tyres

"Heyy-yah!"

Dragons seemed so much more popular than dinosaurs nowadays.

The minute, black eyes of the green Tyrannosaurus Rex toy impossibly moved, watching eagerly yet sadly as its old best friend paid more attention on a screen, having laid his imagination to rest for two weeks already with no hope of returning any time soon. The twelve-year old Andy had not laid eyes on his toys for all this time, and with his pleading of his mother to buy the next _Spyro_ game things were looking bleak for all of the contents of his toybox but none were as fearful as one of the three toys not confined to that very toybox at that moment.

In one way, Rex wanted to simply cry out and wave his little arms at the boy, reveal his true nature as he remembered Sarge had once tried. But consequences could be grave, for both the toys and the boy himself. Woody and Buzz had once revealed themselves to a nasty young man years ago now, just before they'd moved to their current home, and that boy, Sid, had tracked them down. He had grown paranoid of everything, thought that because toys could move then perhaps other inanimate objects could, jumped at the sight of gnomes and, as Potato Head had once claimed, as he watched Sid stalking around outside, from his perch on the window, screamed at a mailbox, ordering it to give itself up. Rex didn't want to see Andy follow that same path.

"There's a snake in my boot!"

Andy jumped up from his game, spun around. "Wha-?" He wondered. He paused the game and walked towards his bed, where Woody laid, thrown there in a rapid response to an order to have the room tidy to get a takeaway from Pizza Planet for dinner. He picked up the almost-forgotten toy, confused, and examined the string pull. How had the toy made that sound?

The doorbell rung throughout the house.

Andy shrugged and tossed the toy back on the bed, leaving the room to go downstairs and open the door to get dinner. Immediately the toy box opened and Mr. Potato Head jumped out, followed by his wittering wife. "What're you playing at?" He yelled at Woody, having become frustrated at being unable to be his evil self seen in Andy's imagination for the last two weeks. Woody pushed himself up and dropped from the bed, holding his hands out in annoyance. "I thought it'd get him away from his game!" He sighed. Rex looked down from his high shelf, having been trapped there for a week, no way safely down. "He has sixty six eggs already! He's addicted!" He cried, wiggling his arms about. "He's got even more—"

But Rex was interrupted. A scream from downstairs. "BUSTER!" All the toys were instantly alert. Rex leaned forward to look out of the window and yelped. "It's Buster! He's got out, he's running down the street! Andy doesn't know what to do!"

Woody knew what he had to do. He jumped up on the desk, using the knobs of each drawer of that desk as holds, and slid out the window on to the roof, darting forward to the edge of it to look down the street. Buster was already a way off, and Andy and the pizza delivery man were standing at the edge of the path. Andy looked like he wasn't sure whether to run after Buster or not, while the pizza guy was trying to shift the pizza as soon as he could.

Woody heard a motor speeding up behind him and spun around to see his remote controllable friend. "RC!" He exclaimed, already getting into position. "You sure about this, little guy?" He asked. RC sped forward in response. "Alright then, down we go!"

RC sped off the side of the roof, and for a moment they were flying at a hundred miles an hour, then gravity grasped both of them and they crashed down on to the grassy ground below. It was soft but the impact was still hard. RC's motor momentarily paused and he flipped, throwing Woody off and sending a battery hammering into the ground. Woody was back in a second, but RC had grown tired with the loss of its power source. "We've gotta go!" Woody urged RC on, and the wheels turned so that they could chase after Buster, who was at the top of the street but distracted, jumping up at a garden wall. Woody doubted Buster would stay there long, though, so they had to be quick.

They were lucky it was fairly late, as the street was for the time being devoid of vehicles. RC was doing well, breaking his limits in spite of the loss of one of his four batteries, and Woody had to keep a firm hand on his hat to keep it from flying off. They were getting closer to Buster now, and Woody could hear Andy now shouting behind them, he'd chosen to chase after Buster as well. Woody could only hope that Andy wasn't focusing on the little car racing up the road, feeling perhaps a pang of regret that he had chosen to be so heroic when the consequences of this little adventure could be so dangerous. How could his and RC's presence all that way up the street be logically explained?

"Buster!" Andy yelled, as Buster resumed his run down the street, and Woody saw why Andy suddenly sounded even more desperate. A cab had just turned into the street and the unaware driver was heading towards Buster. "C'mon!" Woody shouted at RC, pushing him on. RC obeyed, and they sped even faster, the wheels starting to burn against the tar below. Woody heard a metallic ping behind him and glanced behind him. Another battery had fallen out of RC – they hadn't put the battery cover back on – and soon was out of sight. Then came another, and RC was powered by just the one, persistent battery, but it surely couldn't last long. Woody leaned forward to see that RC had closed his eyes to save power – the responsibility was now in his hands. He gulped but pushed forward, feeling an innate need to save Buster.

Now they were close. "Buster!" Woody shouted as they neared the dog and the cab. Buster paid no attention, captivated by some sort of smell in the road. "Buster!" Woody repeated, and this finally caught the dog's attention. "Behind you!" Woody yelled, and somehow Buster understood, looked behind him and saw the cab. Buster yelped and leapt out the road, just about avoiding the vehicle. Woody sighed in relief, but this was short-lived when he realised that now they were in the direct path of the cab.

"Get out the road!" Woody ordered RC, but they kept speeding on, the cab growing in front of them. Woody hit down at the car, but they did not stop. His eyes were still closed. "What are you doing?" Woody screamed as the wheels got menacingly close. It was the logical thing to jump off and leave RC to his fate, but Woody could not abandon his friend. Woody realised that RC had spent all of his energy on breaking his limits, and now they would not stop until the last battery fell out or the power given by that battery was exhausted. Woody tried to lean to the side, to move RC out of the way of the cab's path, but it wasn't happening and there wasn't enough time to remove the last battery.

For the first time since his escape from the plane years ago, Woody feared for his toy life.

The wheel didn't crush them completely. It only caught a side of them, leaving Woody's top half, and perhaps most importantly his speaker, unharmed. Woody found that he was pushed off RC before both wheels moved over his legs, and the pain was surprisingly over quickly, the sound of plastic flattening taking more priority with Woody than that momentary pain. The cab was gone soon, and Woody took a deep breath as he sat up to examine the damage.

RC's bumper had been snapped off the little car, and his whole left side had been practically flattened. Buster dashed up to his side, passing the oblivious cab. Woody stood, joining Buster at the toy car's ruined side. RC's eyes remained closed. The wheels did not turn. The toy had driven its last drive.

Andy caught up with them and Woody turned limp. They stayed there for a while, under the orange glow of the descending sun. Buster did not need holding. Andy's tears and Woody's invisible pain kept him chained to their sides, a now loyal companion. Puppy grew into dog at long last.

The walk home was slow and torturous, and the recount to the other toys afterwards was even worse. Woody had never lost. Before then, he'd never lost...

Andy didn't throw RC away. Only three years later, when his mother was cleaning the room did RC finally fall into the black trashcan, though he had been separated from his friends long before that day.


	2. Supernova

"Where did we get this? It's so ugly. Andy doesn't need this clogging up space anymore,"

_I am in a black world of stars. The universe surrounds me and incapacitates me. I am exhausted but I am all. Who needs movement when you can have sight of all that moves? _

_I look up and my hair gently presses against stars and planets that lurk above me. They were not supposed to be there so they will go elsewhere. Maybe they will cease to exist, their souls flickering out as though they were never physically there in the first place but their beams of light outstretching to the furthest galaxies miniscule to even my eyes. They were here. _

_There are more worlds above me, little lives my hair did not move. I want to reach out and grab them. One shines the brightest, or maybe just in my eyes, but it is the stars that do not have much life left to give that attract me. These are the forgotten, nameless stars, and I want to reach out and pull them closer to me and My star. Maybe I want to empower them so that they will shine as bright as the others, or maybe I just want to comfort them, or to comfort myself. If their light embraces My star then even if My star dies it will leave an imprint, won't it? _

Snake and Robot watched from their space on top of the TV as Andy's mom chucked away old, battered stuff, and hoped they did not class as old and battered. It was a relative discomfort to see her gladly pick up Troll and chuck it into the garbage sack, but Troll had changed in the recent years.

_Every star save one is gone. I am left with only one, My star, and it shines brighter than ever before, it is strong. This one star prevails over every challenge it is confronted with. It is the one star I now look up to. _

_It shines even fiercer, until I realise it isn't shining anymore. It's burning. And it's burning in a pink inferno, one that perhaps devours all it comes across, so I start to think, maybe those other stars didn't disappear. Maybe they didn't fade out. Maybe the inferno scared them away. A logical response._

_How did this ruinous inferno begin? It couldn't have started this way. Surely there was a time when its effects were minimal, perhaps a time when it could have been saved. A time when it wanted to be saved. _

_Nothing lives forever though, and even that blaze has had its day. Like all else, the blackness and the dark that surrounds me bites and claws at the inferno, and I feel myself too falling into a deep slumber, but it is a hot slumber and my hair is frayed. Maybe things could have turned out differently. Maybe My star could have shined at all._

Everybody noticed that Troll was gone, but nobody said anything, and maybe some actually cared, but Andy certainly didn't.


	3. Gravity

Someone enters the house. All the toys are asleep, save for one, and it hears the back door shut quietly downstairs. Robot does not want to alarm anybody, so silently climbs out of the toy box and jumps the height down, closing the lid gently behind it. It refuses to light up, not only to stop the invader from seeing it, but also to prevent any human in the house who should wake up from seeing it as well. That would be more risky than it's worth.

Robot creeps forward, past the bed comforting the sleeping, snoring Andy, but pauses when it hears more footsteps downstairs. It does not know what it will be able to do to save the family from theft but it has an inner instinct to protect. Robots are made to be man's aid. It presses onwards, hoping that Shark, who was left downstairs the previous evening, will be alright.

Robot rolls through the crack in the door into the hallway. It can barely see anything, just the first step leading downstairs, and the faint outline of Molly's closed bedroom door. Then it sees a soft circle of light downstairs, and Robot can confirm that its imagination is not going wild. The next best option is that this is a nightmare, but neither robots nor toys dream. This is real. And yet it not once occurs to Robot to climb back into the toybox and pretend that, like its fellow toys, it was asleep while an intruder stole from the house.

The light gets slightly smaller, so Robot finds it safe enough to slide to the railings of the landing to peep down at the lounge. The light moves once more, lowers, and remains still. Robot can see the shadow of the intruder, understanding that his torch must have been set down so he has two hands to steal with, and it is large, almost round, chubby. For a moment Robot wonders how this robber got through the door. The figure bends down frequently, and sometimes has trouble resuming an upright position, an image almost comical.

There is a noise to Robot's immediate left which makes it jolt – a blue surge of light literally flashes through its semi-transparent body – and Robot spins round. It is relieved to see a friend, its old partner, Snake. A non-verbal argument had separated them from each other a few months back, and for a while Robot had hated its old friend, but in this situation Robot is glad to have a unity with anyone, even Snake. Snakes hisses at her old pal, showing a similar notion of friendliness, and Robot flashes once in response before turning back to the intruder shadow. But the shadow is gone and there is only the circle of golden light once more, getting larger and larger until the two toys can see the intruder himself. He is a bald man; hair would be grey if he had any; old but his skin not quite showing it just yet. The man turns around and shines his torch up the stairs, freezing Snake and Robot in their places, and he does what the two toys feared would happen the most. He starts walking up the stairs, not content with the contents of the bottom floor of the house so coming to raid the next one up too. Even if Robot had wanted to run (though the idea was considerably more appealing to Snake) it couldn't have, for the intruder could have easily seen the toys move across the landing into Andy's room if he were to shine the torch upwards. The toys had to remain rooted in their place. The problem was that the only rooms upstairs were each member of the family's bedrooms and a bathroom, the latter probably going to be the least attractive to a burglar. That meant the man would enter a bedroom, and that put someone in danger. And yet the toys can do nothing to stop him. They were, after all, toys.

The intruder reaches the top step and the toys can no longer see his face; his belly is too large. But he moves no longer. Like the toys themselves, the intruder stays standing there. The wait is an agony, and then the silence is broken.

"_I know what you are,"_

It is a sly little hiss, a noise Snake would have made if she could talk, and it chills Robot to the circuit board. The intruder is looking at them, snarling, shining his torch in their faces. They do not blink, and it is no difficulty. But both are barraged with fear. Does the man know their secret?

"_I got your little shark friend too. Yeah, I got him. He didn't move either." _

Snake and Robot do not move, cannot move.

And the man bends down once more, his specs sliding to the edge of his nose, his face a giant in front of Snake and Robot, and he grins a toothy, yellow grin, and the toys do desperately want to back away but it is impossible, and the man reaches out his grubby, sweating hands and picks up the two toys, lifting them up so that the ground disappears beneath them. The man is holding his tongue out, saliva oozing off it, and now the toys are in front of his face on his level, and they can see his pupils dilating and undulating and dilating, eyes so excited, eyes flashing with murderous intent. He takes one large _thud_ forwards and slowly turns to his left, holding the two toys over the banister, holding them out, and suddenly the two toys know what is going to happen, but why, and how?

Robot is the first to go.

It is the luckiest.

It falls quickly, the ground of the bottom floor rising rapidly though it cannot predict when it will come for it is eternal dark on this floor. It makes a loud noise as its exterior smashes against the cold laminate floor, plastic and circuit splintering across the floor. The intruder curses silently, not having realised the impact would be so great, and has to act quickly with Snake. He holds her out in front of him with two hands, head in his left hand and end of the tail in the other hand, and pulls. Snake snaps in half, both pieces flailing down away from his other, and then they fall after Robot too. But the job is not complete.

"_Molly? Molly, what're you doing now?"_

The intruder groans, but this was expected after his earlier mistake with Robot. He picks up his torch and tip-taps back down the stairs, memorizing the position of Snake when he reaches the bottom and switching off the torch to avoid the mother's alert. He runs almost gracefully to the backdoor but is sure to step on Snake as he goes. For once in his life his weight comes to his benefit and Snake crushes to pieces beneath him. He is glad. He escapes the house, locking the door expertly behind him, and he was never there.

The bodies of the three toys, Snake, Robot and Shark (who has been sliced to pieces with a knife) are found in the morning by Molly, reinforcing Andy's voiced accusations (and their mother's silent ones) that she destroyed his toys in response to a fight they had had the day before. Three of Molly's four Barbies are beheaded in retaliation (the fourth remaining safe because it is lost, being Molly's least favourite) and the tragedy is heightened further for Andy's grieving toys. Nobody knows about the mysterious, large toy murderer for the time being, and if he hadn't returned some years later then perhaps the truth would never have been revealed about what happened to the toys Andy called Shark, Snake and Robot.


	4. Zinc and Copper

Yard sale!

Andy's mom rarely came into his room anymore, the only times being when she had a suspicion her son had been up to something and came snooping. The toys had thought they were finally safe from the curse of the yard sale, and the tiring task of rescuing old toys labelled as 'junk' was thought to be dead. How ironic, then, that Molly had chosen to remove one of the toys from the safe prison of Andy's room the day before a yard sale was due, and that once more broken toy was lying on the table in the yard as he had almost seven years before. But this time Woody wasn't there to rescue him, and neither was Buzz, and nor were Jessie and Bullseye.

Bo Peep looked from the window at the helpless Wheezy, frightened. A chip earlier that year had reminded her that she was the most fragile of the toys (of course, she wasn't a toy anyway.) but Andy had chosen this day to, for some reason, take his old best friends into school with him. Maybe he and his friends were being nostalgic, or maybe it was for a project. Andy never told his toys anything these days. But with the toys' usual heroes away, was the only hope for saving Wheezy praying that he didn't get sold? Bo Peep couldn't imagine the few toys left all being willing to risk themselves to save Wheezy, especially after what had happened the last time. They rarely emerged from the toy box nowadays anyway. Didn't see any point in it. It only led to danger, no chance of anything decent happening. None of them could remember the last time Andy had played with them, though all were jealous of Andy's sudden affection of the four he had taken into school.

But Bo Peep could not just stay and watch. Wheezy needed saving!

She walked away from the window, carefully hoisting herself off the desk, and knocked thrice on the dusty toy box with her scratched crook. The lid opened slightly and Rex's head slid through the crack. "Bo Peep! Guys, it's Bo Peep!" He exclaimed, like he'd not seen her in weeks. It hadn't been that long, had it? A muffled reply from Hamm from inside the dark box told both Bo Peep and Rex that for him at least, it was no big deal. Rex sighed, missing the days when they were all so close, and asked Bo Peep what was up.

"There's a yard sale," was all that Bo needed to say.

"YARD SALE?" Rex screamed, that intense fear flooding his system as it had when he was just a young toy. Oh, he'd not changed at all, and that provided Bo with warmth inside. Once more though, the other toys showed no care for they believed anyone would have to be crazy to want to buy them. The dark really had got to them. Rex calmed down quickly, remembering how he felt the same as the other toys. But Bo needed to carry on; the danger was not solved.

"Andy's mom got Wheezy. He's down there now."

Rex's eyes widened and he reported the information on to the other toys. Wheezy was liked amongst the toys, and this finally sparked their attention. Slinky jumped up at the gap beside Rex and pushed the toybox lid open. "Well then let's go get him!"

Hamm jumped out of the toybox with the other two toys. "Hey, we gotta watch it. We can't all go down there at once. What'll happen if we get caught, eh?" He warned them. "Two at most a us should go."

"Well Bo can't go, she'll break!" Rex exclaimed, and Slinky walked forwards, taking his job.

"I can go. I've jumped off that roof enough times before, eh heh. I ain't breaking anytime soon," He suggested, and Bo nodded. All four toys climbed back up to the desk, to the windowsill, and Bo ran to the window to check Wheezy was all right. He was, for the time being, but customers were starting to arrive. "Be quick," She told Slinky, and he nodded, pushing the window up with his nose and walking out. Rex went to follow him, but Slinky shrugged him off. "No point in two of us going down there. You stay up here, Rex, it'll be safer,". And with that, Slinky ran out through the window on to the roof outside, and jumped off without a goodbye. Bo Peep, Hamm and Rex ran after him, getting to the edge of the roof and peering down to see that he had made it safely down on to the soft landing of the bush below. The toys stayed on the roof, having to stay there to get a perfect view of the yard sale, and images of Bo Peep somehow slipping off and smashing below flashed scarily into Rex's imagination. He wanted to say something, pull her back from the dangerous edge, but did not say anything for fear of seeming paranoid.

Slinky trotted forwards to Wheezy's table quickly, recalling how a dog had helped saved Wheezy before. Slinky hoped to follow in that dog's footsteps in being able to save the poor penguin toy. He froze for a moment to allow an old couple to get out of sight, then pushed onwards, evading eyesight and noise, until he got to Wheezy's table.

Making sure nobody was close, Slinky jumped up to the table. It was high, and he only just managed to put his front paws on the edge of the table, so he had to take time to get a firm grip on the table before lifting himself up, his spring bounding up on to the table behind him. But Wheezy was gone!

Wheezy looked back up at the roof, at the other toys, in panic, but they motioned to the left. Slinky looked in that direction to see Wheezy lying there, looking at him, unable to move himself as he never seemed to be able to. Slinky breathed in relief, and leapt forward over the gap off his table and on to the other table, not noticing the other toys' sudden shouts and motions to stay still. It was only Wheezy's wide eyed warning that made Slinky pause, his front end on Wheezy's table while his back end was still joined by his spring to the back table. The spring created a barrier in the gap between the two tables, a gap there for anyone to see.

Immediately a teenage girl with a large, green backpack walked into the area, browsing at the junk on sale. Slinky would have shut his eyes tight in anticipation if he could. The girl walked closer to Slinky, looking at some old CDs, then turned and saw the strange sight of Slinky hanging across two tables. "Huh?" She wondered, confused, and she put her back pack down, picking up the Slinky Dog as she did. "This is retro stuff," She laughed to herself, pushing the two ends of the dog close together, and then pulling them far apart to give the spring a test. "Nice," She smiled, but then something else caught her attention. She carelessly laid Slinky down on the table he'd started on, and his front end fell forwards off the table, bringing the rest of the toy down with it. Slinky could only hear the girl, while the other toys atop the roof looked on in horror.

"Penguin! This is so cute," She giggled, and picked up her backpack, walking up to Andy's mom to buy the toy for mere spare change. Slinky pushed himself up to watch his failure. The girl was gone with Wheezy so quickly, riding her bike out of sight, and there was no chance of rescuing Wheezy.

"Show's over," said Hamm, hiding the sadness of losing another friend in his voice as he always did. Rex whimpered. Bo Peep breathed softly. Slinky did not lay down there on the ground, in the dirt, in that yard sale any longer. He walked back into the house, taking the ajar front door this time instead of the preposterously high jump back on the roof, and returned to Andy's room where he did not emerge from the toy box for some time, even when the other toys got back with Andy. From that day on, something changed about Slinky, something very, very slight, but still a change nevertheless.

It was also from that day on that strange things started happening in the Davies household.


	5. Disease

When Andy noticed the disappearances of some of his toys, he thought they had simply been lost, taken by his mother for yet another yard sale (or just thrown out in the middle of a clean), or even stolen or accidentally broken and hidden by Molly. Not that he cared too much; this sixteen year old on the dawn of his seventeenth birthday had long grown out of playing with binoculars, microphones with silly faces, and mini figures of strong men. On the other hand, these disappearances became a huge source of worry for the remaining toys of Andy's room, not only because they were quickly losing friends, but also because there was very obviously something (or someone) who wanted to hurt them, and that something wasn't Buster.

The first horror came when Buzz, on a search for his friend, found Etch early in the morning (before Andy had awoken) on a shelf in the room. Etch's screen had been smashed, black spreading across the remains of the plastic, and it looked like the smashing had continued into Etch's electricals, severing every wire and connection in the poor old toy's body like a lobotomy, and as if that wasn't enough, on further mournful inspection, Buzz found that Etch's batteries had been removed and the whole battery compartment had been battered. Etch was far, far beyond repair, and Buzz only told Woody of the dreadful finding. Etch was taken out of the room and hidden at the bottom of a black trash sack when the family was next out, Buzz and Woody holding the dead toy on their shoulders, unknowingly watched by Jessie and Bo Peep, and unknowingly also by these two toys, a third being basking in success.

The next one could not be hidden from the other toys.

Andy had been away at a friend's, but had earlier that night been sifting through his remaining toys to see if any would be of any worth on eBay. Obviously his favourite toys were exempt; Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Bullseye, and various others could never be sold. Sometimes memories were more important than wealth. But toys Andy had forgotten were up for grabs, and the first one to be dragged out from the dark was his Bucket o' Soldiers. Andy had been distracted by a different website, though, and the soldiers had remained on the desk but not on a listing on eBay. Andy had left, leading the loyal men out. Out and vulnerable.

In the morning the other toys heard a muffled cry for help coming from inside the bucket, and so Mr. Potato Head had climbed up there to find out what the matter was. It was terrible. Inside the bucket was just a mush of green plastic, no more recognisable as army soldiers. Something had been there massacring the whole bucket all night. Potato Head almost roasted at the thought. But the cries were still there. After a sickening dig through the mound of bodies, the living soldiers were found. Three of them, Sarge include, unharmed, having been at the very bottom of the bucket, the last men of their squadron. The toys had already been in a state of panic having been on the verge of being sold and separated, and this just upset them more; the idea that there was something killing toys in the house scared them, and fingers were being pointed at toys themselves. Mr. Potato Head believed Woody was the culprit, offering the idea that as Andy's first toy, he was sick of not being played with anymore and wanted to get rid of the competition. Rex started to grow a fear of the aliens, never truly understanding them since they had been brought into the house, and Sarge and his men grew completely independent, living only for themselves now and being prepared for defence from any attack from anybody. But Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Bullseye and Bo Peep remained strong. They refused to believe that any of their friends could commit such an atrocity, and searched for an explanation before they were all killed off.

The attacks continued, and Buzz eventually saw no other option but to give a suggestion to Woody that could save them all: Become alive to Andy, tell him what was happening, and gain his protection (and, with any luck, love again). If only.

Woody fell down on his backside, leaning against a chest of drawers, withdrawn and depressed. Things had fallen apart, but they couldn't do anything, least of all tell Andy. Buzz needed a reason; they had talked to Sid, hadn't they? Andy could take the revelation that all his toys were alive a little badly, sure, but it was better than them all being ripped to shreds by the mysterious killer, wasn't it?

Woody took a deep breath and began.

"When I was born... When I was born, a batch of other toys and me were donated by the toy company to a hospital. We were in the children's ward. And there was this little boy, a boy called George, and he had something wrong with him... He was never told explicitly, so neither were us toys. Well George was friendly, he had a few friends in that ward, but there was nothing more that he loved than us toys," Woody laughed in nostalgia. "He was my best friend. He loved me. I was one of his favourite toys. And there was another toy he loved, a little teddy orange fish called _Nemo_. We really were his best friends. He slept with us every night, hugged us close like he never wanted to let go. Me and Nemo never wanted to let go either,"

Buzz felt awkward. This was the first time Woody had told him anything about his past, but he could tell where it was going.

"Well one day George's parents came in, all sad and teary eyed, and they whispered something to George and kissed him and then George started to cry too. Then George was let out of the hospital, and we thought he'd been cured. The hospital staff were friendly, and George wanted to take Nemo and me home with him, so they let him. That was my first time being in a real home and it felt perfect. We still went to bed with George, the three of us in that bed, best friends that could never be parted. But one night... one night, something felt very wrong. George was looking bad. I think me and Nemo knew what was gonna happen. There's that innate fear, a sort of impossibility, us toys have with being alive around humans, isn't there? One I couldn't break even then. But Nemo did, he defied that and he broken through it. He talked to George, or tried to. One word came out of his mouth, and that got George's attention, and then Nemo just... just froze. He didn't do anything. I thought he'd backed down. But the next day I tried to talk to him and he didn't move. Didn't move at all. It was like he'd lost his life... Like he was what a toy is meant to be. Just material, nothing more. Nemo died that night with George,"

Buzz was confused. "Talking to George killed him?"

Woody nodded solemnly. "Yeah. The family thought Nemo was George's favourite, so Nemo was buried in the same coffin as him. So I guess they were together forever. And I was given to the family to keep and pass down. George was Andy's grand-uncle, and I've been passed down the family ever since,"

Buzz nodded, silent for a while, unsure of how to react to Woody's story. Woody didn't say a word either, looked down, staring at the memories.

"If becoming alive turns us into... toys... why did we survive when we came alive to Sid?" Buzz asked, dodging the whole subject of George.

Woody sniffed. "I've been thinking of that a lot. It was on my mind a lot before we did it, too. I thought we were going to freeze, but it was better than being killed by Sid. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to worry you. I don't want to worry the others either. But you know what I think? I think we stayed there because it wasn't just whatever it is that makes us alive keeping us alive. Sid's imagination was so vivid, so real, he was so obsessed with us toys that I think, in a way, he _knew_ we were real. Or his lifestyle made it so. And that meant that when we came alive he, ironically I guess, kept us alive. Just... What I'm saying, is that if we're really believed to be real and alive, we can _be_ real and alive. But the thing is Andy doesn't think we're alive at all. Not anymore,"

Buzz nodded. "We can't take the risk. It'd be suicide," He sighed.

Bullseye suddenly bounded into view, motioning to the toys to come out from the side of the bed. Woody's eyes widened, pleading that there hadn't been another kill, and they followed Bullseye. All the remaining toys were standing in a circle around something. Jessie came running out of the circle to meet Woody and Buzz, leading them back through the toys, telling them, "Slinky said he saw something, and he shouted out at it, but they ran away, out of the room, but they dropped this, _he dropped this!_"

They reached the inner circle and Woody immediately felt like all the breath in his body had been stolen. In the middle of the circle, one edge dug into the carpet, was an old toy pickaxe, completely safe for children but deadly for other toys, an old pickaxe dropped on an airport luggage conveyor belt but somehow retrieved or remade, the details irrelevant, only the meaning of its presence meaning anything. Woody, Jessie and Bullseye subconsciously huddled together, all fearful of the old Prospector, for everybody had seen his pickaxe.


End file.
